Nose Dive

Roy F. Baumeister and Debra G Hutton, Self Presentation Theory: Self Construction and Audience Pleasing

This Chapter is mostly about the reasons why humans present themselves in the way they do. There are usually two motivations which are “pleasing the audience” and “self-construction.” They also speak about how group therapy and one on one therapy can be affected by self-presentation. People can also misrepresent their health in society. Some people want to present themselves as being sick while others can do the opposite. In groups of “delinquents” people also have a self presentation to uphold. Once a person is thrown into a group of antisocial people they create their own rules and own image and try to uphold that in their own group.

Tim Rayner, Foucault and social Media: life in a virtual panopticon, Philosophy for change Part 1

The Panopticon of social media is well explained in this article. “We are both guards and prisoners” Rayner says. People are constantly judging people and we are constantly waiting to be judged. This leads us to share things on social media that we believe will impress people to help boost our self image.

Tim Rayner, Foucault and social Media: I tweet, therefore I become, Philosophy for change part 2

This Part speaks about an author who exposed herself to twitter in order to try and promote a book. She then grew fond of twitter because it was a way she could shape herself, express her inner thoughts, and be creative. At first she liked it but became anxious about it later in her experience. She realized she was creating her own Panopticon in social media. This article also speaks about some tribalism and how it is inherent in twitter.

Tim Rayner, Foucault and social Media: the call of the crowd, Philosophy for change part 3

This article speaks about how people present ourselves on social media is almost like a game. There are rules but the most interesting one is do not stray too far away from the truth because it is easy to tell when people are being phony. The article also speaks about how users have to play to different crowds on the internet. When people post something they watch it and adjust their future content to aline with the feedback from previous posts.

Nose Dive Analysis

In the episode everybody is very aware of the image they depict on social media for all of their peers to see. The Two Motivations in the article are in full affect as we see the main character Lacie and almost all of he other characters are focused on pleasing the audience and self construction. One the best examples of pleasing the audience is when Lacie posts a picture of a childhood toy to try and get her friend from childhood to 5 star it. The first article also speaks about delinquents in society. The biggest outcast we see in this episode is probably Susan the truck driver. She had a terrible series of events happen to her which changed her outlook on life. She stopped caring about what people thought of her online and separated herself from society just like many people do if they do not agree with the norms of regular society.

Lacie and everyone like her in this episode are stuck in the panopticon of social media. People are constantly judging and waiting to be judged just like Tim Rayner says in part 1 of his articles. In part 2 he talks about tribalism. Tribalism of social media is also shown in this episode. It might not be the main focus but it is there. Whenever someone is seen as doing something wrong, everyone in order to show they are on the good side of the argument stops giving the “bad people” high ratings. Also the viewer can see the tribalism in the way higher rated people do not interact with lower rated people. Everyone only interacts and votes up people with similar ratings.

In part 3 being phony is part of the rules of the “game” of social media. Everyone in this episode is clearly being phony in the way they act so this rule of social media might disappear as time goes on. In the current state of social media it is easier to tell if someone is being phony but if it progresses people might not be able to tell as much. Also people will be less likely down vote phony people in the episode because they have such a distorted view of reality.

Discussion Questions

If people could rank your real life actions like they can in the episode how drastic of an effect on self presentation would there be to most people?

Is it ethical for society to be able to determine how far up the ladder you go or how successful you are?